Well, there you have it. Was it worth it, long term? Short term it gets their operations going again. Long term, will this simply encourage more ransom demands?
This should be a wake up call about cyber security.
And maybe changes should be made in how some businesses operate. Clearly, the operations of this pipeline should not be on the internet.
I don’t know the answer, if some sort of closed network is needed, or maybe more human beings need to be employed to do some work which has been automated over the years.
As others have pointed out, this pipeline was built long before the internet was invented, and operated for decades without internet connections.
This was not done by some elusive Russian ransomware hacker. Perhaps an inside job. The hacker crap is the cover story.
Yes, it will encourage more ransom demands.
Yes, it needs to go offline or at least closed network.
Yes, they should have paid the ransom. It’s basically an expensive IT negligence bill.
$5 million is, pardon the pun, a drop in the bucket compared to the economical impact. I don’t have an issue with them paying the ransom. Their lackluster security caught up with them. I just hope that they, and others, learn from this and start beefing up their security.
If you develop a habit of taking shortcuts down dark alleys at night to save time, and you get held up - hand over your wallet and stop walking down dark alleys at night.
Don’t expect the police to make dark alleys safe. Likewise, don’t expect the government to make you safe from cyber criminals.
Not to worry....Biden signed an EO on cybersecurity. We’re all good now....yeh...right.
Pay the $5M. Then track the crooks down and kill them quietly. Unofficial. Below the radar. They just disappear and are never found.
While “hackers” get all the headlines, remember that the easiest and most effective way to break into a system is on location.
This could be employees or it could be thumb drives placed in the parking lot and put in the computer by curious employees.
Other alternatives could be visitors to the site (computer repair-folks would have an easy time of it).
The trend is set in concrete. The entire S&P500 is seduced by "efficiencies" and costs savings of having everything on line. Amazon, IBM, Microsoft growth is all about "cloud computing" and serving this trend. It would require a 180 Degree change in mindset which will not happen.
I was on a quarterly conference call a week ago with another pipeline company recently bragging about how their "digital transformation" allowing the company to be operated from anywhere, would be a huge savings and prove what a technological leader they were in their industry.
So we have a completely new risk on our hands.